Wanted: $7 million lottery winner who purchased Cash4Life ticket in Brooklyn one year ago

Someone's lucky day is about to become their unluckiest day, as the final hours wind down for the mystery winner of a $7-million Cash4Life prize -- a prize that, come Friday, will be forfeited, officials said.

The New York State Lottery is, in its own words, "pulling out all the stops" as it tries to find the "missing millionaire."

For the record, the winning ticket was sold on July 24, 2014, at the Milky Way Deli on Ralph Avenue in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The winning numbers: 5, 20, 35, 43 and 48 -- with a Cash Ball of 3.

That is good for the $7 million jackpot prize, officials said. Except for one thing: Hours short of one year later, no one has come forward to claim the prize. Come Friday, it will be too late.

"We're making one last effort to find the winner of this $7,000,000 jackpot prize, but the person only has until tomorrow to claim it," acting director of the Division of the Lottery, Gardner Gurney, said in a statement Thursday. "We are urging players to check and double-check their tickets one last time before it is too late."

The lottery has canvassed the neighborhood around the Milky Way with "Have You Seen Me?" and "Is This You?" fliers in a last-ditch effort to locate the would-be millionaire. The efforts have been in vain.

Lottery officials are asking that, should the ticket-holder realize what happened and locate the ticket, they sign the back -- and contact them immediately at 518-388-3370. The winner can claim the prize at any one of the Lottery Customer Service Centers statewide, including in Manhattan on Beaver Street and at the Long Island office on the Long Island Expressway South Service Road in Plainview, officials said.

Better late than never. But, for the mystery ticket-buyer, Friday marks the time late becomes never -- and that never becomes forever.

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”